Michael Gerson's mama wears combat boots

Another letter the Post didn't publish

Editor,

Michael Gerson tells us that there are "only two responses [to the Medicare crisis]. The conservative approach...would involve focusing public benefits on the poor while requiring the wealthy and middle class to accept a greater share of their health costs ("Placating the middle class," Jan. 4)."

Perhaps I am naive, but that assertion comes as something of a surprise. If it is accurate, then I can't help noting that there just aren't many of those "conservatives" in Congress. In point of fact, I can't think of a single Republican in the House who has recently expressed a policy preference for the poor.

"The liberal approach," Gerson continues, "is to increase the percentage of the economy taken in taxes to well above historical norms to support the commitments of an essentially unreformed entitlement system."

I consider myself a liberal (maybe worse, but let's not go there), but that's not a description I recognize. Nevertheless, please, raise taxes "above the historical norm" to put people back to work. Once they are working and business is expanding production more rapidly, the GNP will go up faster than tax revenues, which Gerson ought to find gratifying.

And, by all means, reform Medicare to permit the government to achieve substantial savings through competitive bidding for medical equipment and a wide range of medical services, and allow for public funding of drug research in order to reduce the exorbitant profits that result from corporate control of drug patents.

And, to make Gerson conservatives happy, introduce a graduated means test that will reduce health benefits collected by upper-income individuals. Use such policies to reduce per capita health care costs to levels comparable to other industrial democracies and the Medicare crisis will go away. Into the bargain, the economy will benefit and even more jobs will be created.

Think of the subsequent growth in the GNP! Think of the reduction "in the percentage of the economy taken in taxes!" See the deficit shrink! Find the conservatives in Congress! There's work to be done!

Jeff Epton

Brookland

Reader P.S. If you want to get a look at a letter of mine the Post did publish, check out "A tanker contract that shouldn't fly." It was almost five years ago, but I still like the letter.

Journalistic malpractice on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Recent Washington Post report editorializes in obvious way

I wrote the Post again yesterday. Just a quickie to note that whatever the paper and its reporter intended,  a recent U.S. criticism of Israeli settlement plans was not also an expression of skepticism about Palestinians' willingness to negotiate peace. But it was gratuitous to say so, and a good example, at the very least, of sloppy thinking about the Israeli-Palesinian conflict.

Taken out of context, the mistake proves little. But it nevertheless fits nicely in the American media's decades long failure to grasp the fact that however much Zionism may express the legitimate longing of the Jewish people for a safe and secure homeland, it does not justify the creation of a Jewish state on territory belonging to others, nor does it place the creation of the state of Israel outside the judgement of international law.

Of course, Israel is not going anywhere. However much Palestinians may wish for a different outcome, there will always be an Israel. But it may one day negotiate compensation with Palestinians for the taking of their territory and the continued occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza; and it may also one day compromise its character as a Jewish theocratic state in the interest of a more democratic outcome.

In any case, here is the letter that I sent to the Post yesterday:

The third paragraph in Anne Gearan's Wednesday story, "U.S. condemns Israeli settlement plan," contains the observation that a U.S. criticism of Israeli settlement plans "reveals profound skepticism about whether the leadership of both Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank has the will to return to substantive talks," but it's hard to see how that statement can be correct. There is no mention anyplace else in the 12-graph story of U.S. suspicions about the "will" of Palestinians. Indeed, the entire story is about the negative effect that new and existing Israeli settlements have on peace prospects. Perhaps, Gearan wished to characterize Palestinians as equally guilty in an effort to maintain some sort of journalistic "balance," but the statement looks much more like bias and should have been edited out.

Journalist misses truth about Israeli occupation

Quelle surpris!

this is my umpteenth letter to the Washington Post about how often their columnists ignore the basic truths about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--like the fact that Israel is an occupying power and, under international law, is barred from appropriating occupied territory, which is an actual war crime--and Jackson Diehl is a decision maker at the Post, routinely deciding what should run and what shouldn't, and he should know better than to pretend that the problem here is the Palestinian leadership or the Obama administration.

Assuming that the U.S. really wants to midwife worthwhile negotiations between the two parties, rather than merely give the appearance of working hard, the Obama administration ought to be far more concerned with naming Israeli transgressions (subsidized by U.S. aid) than with affirming Israeli-U.S. friendship. No true friend would spend so much time enabling dysfunctional behavior. Anyway, here's the letter:

Editor,

President Obama has made “flagrant mistakes” in dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, says Deputy Editorial Page Editor Jackson Diehl (“A Mideast obstacle, ignored,” Mar. 22). Diehl asserts that the Bush administration’s handling of Israel would be a better model for managing the many obstacles that crop up on the path to a negotiated settlement, a claim that has me scratching my head.

Outside of Diehl, AIPAC and partisan Republican observers, I’m hard put to identify another source for such a high opinion of Bush administration statecraft in the Middle East. This should not be surprising considering that there were no negotiations, at all, between Israel and the Palestinians for seven years after the end of peace talks in 2001. At the time Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice managed to restart talks, the Israeli government was led by the relatively moderate Ehud Olmert, not by the likes of hardliner Binyamin Netanyahu, a distinction that Diehl acknowledges while dismissing its significance.

Historically, the United States has been the most important guarantor of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. The U.S. has also subsidized Israel with almost $1 trillion since the founding of the state. Accordingly, the Obama administration reacted critically to the recent announcement that Israel would build an additional 1,600 housing units in Arab East Jerusalem. That criticism was leavened, as all U.S. criticism has been, by repeated affirmations of the unique and “special” relationship between the two countries. Diehl, however, says the current White House “went ballistic.” I think “ballistic” would be a better description of what Israel “went” last year in Gaza.

Social Security Spending Helps the Economy

Military spending drives the deficit

I could have sworn that my 28th letter to the Washington Post, which follows here, would be the second one that they would publish. Alas, I was wrong, again, but it is the content that matters, not the quarrel. The letter focuses, once more, on how unhelpful it is to talk about the national debt and federal budget deficit without even acknowledging military spending. Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), also addressed the same opinion piece to which I'd responded. I've interspersed Baker's response, which ran in his weekly Beat the Press blog, in the text of my letter.

Editor,

So Robert Samuelson is calling on the Obama administration to be more open about future debt and deficit difficulties (“America’s Candor Gap,” Feb. 8), but his version of fiscal reality lacks some important details, as well. The federal government is projected to spend almost $46 trillion between 2011 and 2020, Samuelson writes, and $20 trillion will go to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Such a “…budget is mainly a vehicle for transferring income to retirees from workers, who pay most taxes,” he continues.

But as income transfers go, Samuelson’s example is relatively benign. Most of the transfer in this instance is from younger workers to older ones and most of the money transferred is spent immediately on goods and services—a reliable exchange that helps to keep the economy going. And, as economist Dean Baker and others have pointed out (see a list of CEPR's many reports about Social Security here), if the cap on Social Security and Medicare taxes is raised, higher income professionals will bear more of the tax burden, making the income transfer even more positive for the economy.

But there is a less benign income transfer that Samuelson does not even mention: military spending of more than $1 trillion annually (the sum of Defense Department spending + national security spending + military spending in other departmental budgets + supplemental war spending + interest on that portion of the national debt attributable to deficit spending on the military in previous years). In fact, 25 percent of the six to eight trillion dollars that will be spent on interest on the national debt during 2011-2020 will be attributable to previous military spending.

Discussing the country’s fiscal hemorrhage without discussing the military budget falls far short of full disclosure.

***************************************************


Readers of this blog may find Dean Baker's report, "The Social Security Shortfall and the National Defense Shortfall" of particular interest.

Baker's response to the same column by Samuelson is here. More about the rise in Pentagon spending compared to the increase in spending for Social Security is here. Finally, it is worth noting that, in the last cited piece, Baker does not use the $1 trillion+ figure for military spending that I use because he includes only budgeted spending for the Department of Defense and does not include the additional spending itemized in my letter to the Post.

Manufacturing the News

Polls paid for by media become news stories

This is my 27th letter to the Washington Post. I generally do believe that the letters I write have a chance of being published, but I knew this one was a bigger stretch than usual. The letter accuses the Post of paying for polls on topical issues, then managing the way the results are released in their paper. That's actually not where the stretch lies; it's what they do. But it is also easy for editors and reporters to argue that the poll results they report actually examine public feeling to a depth that readers cannot. Still, polls generally report who is hot and who is not. Much of the additional detail organized in reports of polls as if it were factual is actually subject to both interpretation and statistical error.

My guess is that newspapers started polling as a defensive move; an attempt to protect their stories from the spin that owners of private poll results might introduce. After all, politicians were polling before newspapers, and leaking the results of polls to targeted journalists in an effort to influence coverage of elections. That doesn't happen so much now that everybody, politicians and journalists come armed with poll results. Campaigns don't try as hard to use their polls to spin stories, primarily because they more often use their polls to identify target audiences and develop messages aimed at groups of voters. Nor would spinning work as well in an environment where a newspaper can report their own, perhaps different, poll results. But the original defensive purpose for polling has changed--survey results are now news, and journalists no longer have to hit the streets to get the story.

Editor,

A quick look at the last two issues of the Post provides a clear example of how print media manages the news, rather than simply reporting it. The front-page over-the-fold story on Sunday, Jan. 31 (“Fenty’s approval ratings plummet”) says that a “new Washington Post poll” shows that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty’s popularity among residents has dropped dramatically since a 2008 poll.

A day later, in a metro story (“D.C. Schools Chancellor Rhee’s approval rating in deep slide”), we read that the same “new” poll reveals that the public perception of Chancellor Rhee is also much more negative now than it was two years ago. But the serial nature of the stories raises the question of exactly what journalistic criteria might have dictated reporting the two stories separately. Personally, I know of none. But I can imagine the business considerations that went into deciding that the stories would have more impact, if they ran separately on Sunday and Monday rather then running together on, say, a low-circulation Saturday.

Speculating in this manner raises further questions, I think. For example, if poll results are news, at all, then why wouldn’t the Post report the results when they first become available? But, perhaps more to the point, why would the Post bother to write about poll results, at all? Editors and reporters routinely assert that journalists investigate and report stories; they do not manufacture them. But news stories based on polls that newspapers pay for seem perilously close to product manufacturing.

Perhaps editors assume that none of us actually talk to each other. It is therefore a great service of the Fourth Estate to share the news with me that my neighbor to the east likes Fenty, while my neighbor to the west does not. If that is the assumption that editors are making, it may be helpful for me to share this fact: by and large, we do know what our neighbors are thinking.

I Don't See No Stinkin' Climate Change

Post op-ed writers knee-deep
in rising waters

What can I say? Writing to the Washington Post just makes my day, even if they don't return the love. This is letter to the Post #25.

Two recent columns on the cost of reversing global climate change suffer from the same weakness—an unwillingness to consider the complete picture that leads the writers, Bjorn Lomborg (“Costly Carbon Cuts,” Sept. 28) and George Will (“Cooling Down the Casandras, Oct. 1”), to rather polemical denunciations of the costs of addressing climate change while ignoring the full range of anticipated consequences. (Also, see Dean Baker's comments on Lomborg's column here.)

Will’s column, in fact, makes simple fun of the climate change threat, noting that the average annual change in global temperatures is not relentlessly upwards. But Will, who has consistently denied that climate change is upon us, does not cite any scientific evidence that the threat is not real in the short- or long-term. Instead, he resorts to ridicule. Though Will is an amusing writer, he has long since disqualified himself as a reasonable contributor to a discussion of climate change and what to do about it.

Lomborg, whom Will has actually cited in the past, does not challenge basic assumptions about climate change, but claims that the cost of addressing it will far exceed the benefits. To come to this conclusion, Lomborg cites a high-end estimate of the cost of reducing greenhouse gasses ($46 trillion) and a low-end estimate ($1.1 trillion) of the benefits from avoiding the “expected climate damage.”

Of course, the economic model Lomborg relies on places no valuation on human life, biodiversity or other nonquantifiable damage. But the economic damage to, say, Bangladesh, where rising seas will wipe out 80% of the country’s GDP [and cause enormous social dislocation], will have little impact on the global economy. Lomborg and economists who rely on such calculations are clearly unconcerned that Bangladeshis will suffer grievously from a problem they have not created. The rest of us ought not be so sanguine about the effects there or anywhere else.

No War Is Good Policy

Iraq and Afghanistan:
Deja Vu All Over Again

Here's Letter to the Post, #24
(It didn't get published, either. Too long, perhaps.):
General Stanley McChrystal’s report on the Afghanistan war might have been leaked a day or two early by someone who wants President Obama to escalate the war, but worrying about who did so, or why, diverts attention from more important considerations.

Perhaps the pivotal statement in McChrystal’s report reads, “Additional resources are required, but focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way we think and operate."

McChrystal also warned against preoccupation “with protection of our own forces” in Afghanistan (“Less Peril for Civilians, but More for Troops,” Post, Sept. 23). These two points, combined with what we already know—that the cost of our current wars is unsustainable, that the war in Iraq was instigated under false pretenses, and that the US’s ability to retaliate in force was understood and discounted by Osama bin Laden long before 9-11—should lead us to some fresh conclusions about war policy:

1. We are engaged in wars that al-Qaeda and the Taliban do not mind fighting and, ultimately, reinforce their recruiting and anti-American messages.
2. Serious US losses at any point provoke calls to escalate wars with unachievable goals at further (unaffordable) expense.
3. No other reasonable foreign policy goals are enhanced, especially progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by continuing the war in Afghanistan.

It should be equally clear that the next one trillion dollars we spend on warmaking is the very same one trillion we need to resolve our current health care gridlock. Forty years ago, we proved that we could not simultaneously wage unjust war and build the Great Society. That lesson is even more universally applicable today. Spending for war is incompatible with building a just world in which a greater portion of humanity can share. If we wish to honor the past sacrifices of soldiers and civilians, American or otherwise, we will invest in peace.

Who Is In Charge of US Israel Policy?

Letter to the Washington Post

By my count, I've written 24 letters to the Post, one has been published so far. This is letter #23:

I know people who believe that US foreign policy is substantially determined by Zionists. I don’t share their opinion and frequently argue that it is counter-productive to focus on a Zionist “cabal” as the driver of American policy.

But two articles in Saturday’s Post provide substantial basis for argument that our Middle East policy is in the hands of people who are exceedingly deferential to Israeli wishes. “Israel Finds Strength in Its Missile Defenses” outlines the way advanced US military technologies are made available to Israel. In addition, the two countries conduct joint military exercises focused largely on Israeli needs and US readiness to “...stand behind Israel if it came under attack.”

All of this aid is only a small portion of the billions of dollars Israel (the number one US foreign aid recipient) receives annually in the form of grants and loan guarantees. It also occurs in the context of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and the relentless Israeli annexation, in the form of settlements, of Palestinian land. As “Envoy’s Mideast Trip Ends Without Accord” reports, George Mitchell’s recent diplomatic visit ended “…without reaching an agreement with Israel over limits on Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.”

The spectacle of the world’s sole superpower giving Israel billions of dollars a year while begging fruitlessly that Israel end its occupation of Palestine, end its annexations, and end its violations of international law, inevitably raises questions about who is in charge of US foreign policy. It should come as no surprise that the easy answer for some is “Zionists.”

Jeff Epton

Washington Post: High Electric Prices Worry Coal Group

And Kathleen Parker disses the South

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) has apparently persuaded at least one Washington Post reporter and his editors that their principle concern in opposing climate change legislation is worry that a "reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions ... would drive the price of electric power too high." This unchallenged assertion appears in an otherwise useful story ("Coal Group Reveals 6 More Forged Lobbying Letters") in today's Post. Readers who believe that the coal industry, which cannot at this time actually deliver "clean" coal, is more concerned with the possibility that decent climate change legislation would reduce U.S. reliance on coal are encouraged to stick to that conclusion.

That flaw aside, the article's value lies in the picture it paints of an industry lobbying effort that wants to appear grassroots is not only astroturf, it's fraudulent astroturf. In a welcome observation, reporter David Farenthold observes:

"This saga of modern Washington -- in which an "American coalition" claiming 200,000 supporters still relies on a subcontractor to gin up favorable letters -- was set off by debate in the House over the climate bill."

According to the story, ACCCE, the coalition in question, hired Hawthorn Group, a public relations firm, which hired Bonner and Associates, the firm that actually produced at least a dozen forged letters pretending to represent the opinions of constituents and local organizations allegedly opposed to the greenhouse gas legislation. The letters were sent to three members of the House before the vote on the bill.

A spokesperson for Bonner blamed a "temporary employee who worked for us for 7 days [who, like Lee Harvey Oswald] acted alone." Hawthorn blamed Bonner & Associates, while ACCCE announced that it was "outraged" by the fraud.

In "A Tip for The GOP: Look Away" conservative columnist Kathleen Parker blasts continued Republican reliance on a Southern strategy that is turning the GOP into a regional party. The column, which is likely to draw real fire from the right, ends dramatically. Republicans, Parker wrote, ought to "drive a stake through the heart of old Dixie."

A Military That Looks Like America

Letter to the Post, #18

Another letter to the Post goes unpublished. My guess is I'll get another one in the paper by the time I get to letter #22.

Retired Army General John Shalikashvili’s column “Gays in the Military: Let the Evidence Speak (Post, June 19) is a welcome relief from the usual narrow dicta issued by military command officers, retired or otherwise. In fact, Shalikashvili cites and refutes a previous Post op-ed piece (Gays and the Military: A Bad Fit, April 15), in which four retired command officers trot out the usual clichés about gays harassing straights and undermining military cohesion. (I wrote a letter to the Post about that one, also. Read it here.)

That earlier piece confirmed me in my own prejudice, which is that in a democracy neither war nor social policy ought to be left up to generals. Shalikashvili is a clear exception, a general able to see that our society must be served by a military that can keep pace with broader social change; specifically that gay men and lesbians ought to be able to serve openly in our armed forces because our democratic values require a military that reflects who we are as a nation.

Jeff Epton

Health Care Benefits for Workers No Matter Who Pays

I'm approaching 20 letters to the Washington Post since we moved to DC. Clearly, I've too much time on my hands.

Meanwhile, the Post has published one of my letters. This one, submitted Monday, is over their word limit by about 30 percent and probably won't be published, either. But I don't really believe word count is the decisive problem here.

I'm guessing the main difficulty is that I'm generally too critical of the Post (and most other newspapers). Still, I don't think that's my problem. It seems to be a matter of editing and writing that doesn't meet a reasonably high standard. Newspapers in their current form may be on their deathbed, but journalists let the side down a long time ago.


Letter to the Washington Post, #17

Your article, “A Red State Booster Shot (Post, 5/31/09)” asserts that “universal health care … is likely to help red America at the expense of blue [America].” Arguable, yes, but far from proven.

The proposition that government health care reform will end up taxing northern and unionized workers for expansion of health care in red states misses several important points and may be overstated. I say, “may be” because the article does not identify the source for the data it throws around. It's true that most northern states have programs that do a much better job insuring children than do southern states. But the families receiving health coverage through combined state/federal programs certainly will not be taxed on those benefits regardless of the means Congress chooses to pay for health care expansions.

Further, as unionized workers lose their jobs they generally lose their health benefits, as well. This factor accounts more than any other for the recent spike in the numbers of uninsured, a change that probably is not reflected in the data supporting your assertion that blue state workers will be significantly taxed to pay for red state benefits.

Though this is not intended to be an exhaustive critique of the slant implicit in your story, there are any number of ways in which blue states and their residents will benefit from a federal initiative to expand health care coverage no matter how the cost is covered. Here are two:

When large numbers of working people in the south begin receiving health care coverage, it will be despite years of opposition by southern state governments and private employers. This benefit will dampen traditional southern voter hostility to federal government activism and will mean less opposition, if not more support, for other federal initiatives, including changes in labor law aimed at defending workers.

Second, an expanded federal role in providing health insurance means more government leverage for controlling health care cost increases. Such a result will lead to huge benefits for both red and blue state workers and, in the long run, dramatically reduced costs for universal healthcare.

Jeff Epton
807 Taylor St., NE
WDC 20017

202 506-7470
jeffepton07@comcast.net

Securities Traders and Science Teachers

Letter to the Washington Post, #17

Editor,

Stories about bonuses for the "vital employees" capable of unravelling the tangled complex derivatives that have nearly crushed AIG, and about the need to give school districts the right to fire incompetent teachers lead the news in DC (and most of the rest of the country, for that matter). It makes sense that people are deeply concerned about how we preserve businesses that are "too big to fail" and improve public schools that fail too often, but we seem to be drinking a kind of kool-aid here.

Though our public schools and our economy need reform and large infusions of cash, a different perspective on the various problems is in order. The average securities trader at AIG probably makes five to 25 times the salary of the average public school teacher. The proposition that those same traders ought to make, say, an additional million dollars more for untangling the trades that their colleagues made because they are the only ones with the knowledge and skill to do it right is an invoice that I, as a taxpayer, am not willing to pay.

But, assuming that we must fix, and not simply rend, AIG, let's consider recruiting high school science and math teachers, who surely have the requisite smarts, to spend their summer vacations untangling derivatives. They could start the summer at boot camp, getting an immersion experience in complex financial trades, and then work another seven weeks or so getting the job done at AIG and other distressed enterprises that the government is bailing out.

We could pay a substantial premium to the teachers for their summer work and save millions in proposed bonus money for investment elsewhere, perhaps in the school districts where our "derivative disentanglement" teams work during the school year. It may be a stretch to suggest that the unemployed securities traders spend the summer in a reeducation project of their own, maybe in basic ethics or debt counseling, but I'm going to go ahead and suggest it anyhow.

Jeff Epton
Brookland

Kill, Kill, Kill the Boeing Tanker Project

Letter to the Washington Post, #12


My first letter to the Post in almost three months. Do you think it’ll see print?

Your story, “Pentagon Reopens Tanker Bidding (July 10)” was incomplete. It should have referred to the re-reopening of the bidding for aerial refueling tankers. After all, the first $100 billion award--to Boeing--was cancelled when collusion between a Pentagon purchasing officer and Boeing was exposed. People went to prison for corrupt practices committed during that first bidding process.

The second contract, awarded to a Northrop Grumman/Airbus consortium, was cancelled after a political uproar during which the consortium and Boeing spent millions on dueling ad campaigns, and various elected officials and the General Accounting Office entered the fray.

Now, after hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on engineering, planning, advertising, bidding, administering, collaborating, corrupting, investigating, prosecuting and incarcerating, we’re going to do it all again. And do it for a Pentagon project that is a relic of a Cold War strategy.

We no longer need a whole fleet of aerial refueling tankers because, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we no longer need to keep bombers and fighters airborne 24/7 in order to assure a counter-strike capacity against a massive nuclear first strike.

It therefore seems obvious that ordinary Americans should not be reassured by the notion that the Pentagon will get it right this time. Getting it right would mean not issuing the contract in the first place. $100 billion and change could then be spent on health care, education and mass transit. How much more reassuring would that be?

Jeff Epton
807 Taylor St., NE
Washington, DC 20017

202 506-7470